When it is required to fill a container such as bottle with a drink from an aseptic drink filling machine, it is of course not only necessary to sterilize a drink itself so as to keep an aseptic condition, but also necessary to preliminarily clean an interior of a drink supply pipe line provided with a surge tank, a liquid feed pipe, a drink filling nozzle and so on of the aseptic drink filling machine and then sterilize the drink supply pipe line so as to create and keep an aseptic condition.
In a known technology, an F-value as a sterilization value to the drink itself passing through the interior of a drink filling path has been measured so as to confirm whether it is worth while for the drink to receive quality guarantee or not based on history information thereof (for example, see Patent Document 4).
In addition, for the drink supply pipe line of the aseptic drink filling machine, a CIP (Cleaning In Place) treatment and an SIP (Sterilizing In Place) treatment have been performed at every time when a kind of a drink is periodically changed (for example, see Patent Documents 1, 2 and 3).
The CIP treatment is performed, for example, by flowing a cleaning liquid prepared with water to which alkaline chemical agent such as caustic soda is added in a flow path from an inside of a pipe line of a drink filling path to a filling nozzle of a filling machine, and thereafter, by filling a cleaning liquid prepared with water to which acidic chemical agent is added. According to such treatment, remaining content of previously filled drink adhering to the drink filling path can be removed (see, for example, Patent Documents 1, 2, and 3).
The SIP treatment is a treatment for preliminarily sterilize the interior of the drink supply pipe line before drink filling working, and for example, this SIP treatment is performed, for example, by circulating steam or heated water through the drink filling path cleaned by the CIP treatment mentioned above. According to such treatment, the interior of the drink filling path can be sterilized to thereby provide an aseptic condition (see, for example, paragraph [0003] of Patent Document 3).